1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing apparatuses, printing systems, and information processing methods, and in particular, relates to an information processing apparatus, a printing system, and an information processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus forms an image by placing a recording agent corresponding to an image forming method on a recording medium, such as plain paper, recycled paper, coated paper, and a film.
Therefore, an image having a required print quality is printed out by performing printing with the amount of recording agent, color settings, and the like corresponding to recording medium attribute information including a number of information, such as a size (A3, A4, letter, and the like), a type (plain paper, recycled paper, coated paper, a film, and the like), and weight.
In addition, in known printing, a combination of such pieces of recording medium attribute information is managed as a recording medium list (hereinafter, simply referred to as a paper list). In the printing, a user designates a paper list to perform print setting, such as the amount of recording agent and color settings, based on the recording medium attribute information (hereinafter, simply referred to as paper attribute information) of the designated paper list, thereby ensuring the required print quality.
In addition, in color printing, an image forming apparatus stores various kinds of conversion information required to convert input image data, such as RGB image data, into output image data corresponding to an output device, such as CMY data, as a number of color profiles. Then, in the printing, the image forming apparatus performs print setting according to the selection of the user from a number of color profiles, thereby ensuring the required color print quality.
However, there are many paper lists or many color profiles. Accordingly, during the print setting, it is difficult for the user to select an appropriate paper list or an appropriate color profile from a number of paper lists or color profiles in order to obtain an intended print result. This leads to poor workability.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-044344 discloses an information processing apparatus that generates print data to be printed by an image input and output device through a network. The information processing apparatus includes: an instruction input unit that inputs an instruction to acquire paper type information, which indicates the type of a medium of the image input and output device, from a user interface provided by a printer driver; a request unit that sends a request for transmission of the paper type information to the image input and output device through a network based on the instruction input by the instruction input unit using a device information acquisition module used in a network device management utility that manages the image input and output device; an acquisition unit that acquires the paper type information from the image input and output device through the device information acquisition module in response to the request from the request unit; and a reflection unit that reflects the paper type information of the image input and output device acquired by the acquisition unit on the user interface provided by the printer driver.
In such a proposed information processing apparatus, however, paper type information is displayed by the printer driver that acquires the paper type information indicating the type of a medium of the image input and output device. Accordingly, paper types stored in the image input and output device can be selected by the printer driver, but the user should select a paper type suitable for an intended print result among a number of paper types since the information of all paper types stored in the image input and output device is reflected on the user interface of the printer driver. For this reason, there has been a problem that not only is the selection of an appropriate paper type difficult but also workability is poor.